reticence

Founding-era definition · Webster's 1828 American Dictionary

RET'ICENCE, RET'ICENCY, noun [Latin reticentia, reticeo; re and tacco, to be silent.] Concealment by silence. In rhetoric, aposiopesis or suppression; a figure by which a person really speaks of a thing, while he makes a show as if he would say nothing on the subject.
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI

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